Search results

I retired at 50 with $1.7M, and my wife & I had an asset allocation until that age was probably 85/15 with 48% in tIRA, 31% Roth, 21% taxable brokerage. Once I retired, I started doing small Roth conversions every year. It's been almost 8 years, and the total is now at $3.6M. I've reduced my...

Everyone should do Roth conversions to grow the Roth account as much as possible. What isn't mentioned in these comments are the flexibility a Roth account gives you. A Roth will let you pay for any unexpected expenses without having to pay any tax. For example, we are planning on buying a new...

I recently switched all my accounts at the same time from VG to Fidelity. The customer service at Fidelity was like a breath of fresh air compared to VG. Received a couple thousand bonus for moving the funds in kind. As a final note, VG even put a hold on one of my stock holdings due to some...

I'm also 57 with an 18 year time frame and do Roth conversions in the 12% bracket. I am definitely trying to put more bonds/t-bills/cds into my IRA so it doesn't grow as fast as my Roth. My view is that with a larger Roth base to work from by the time I'm using SS at 70, I can use my Roth to...

As a spreadsheet geek (former satellite engineer), I present a similar simplified chart to my wife. I would add a column that adds all your money together. Personally, I would present it as column A (Year), column B (Lisa age), column C (Scott age), column D (total money), column E (annual...

Here's the ACA calculator that I used: https://www.kff.org/interactive/subsidy-calculator In general, my wife and I have a silver plan with AGI of $37K and pay $50/month with a max out of pocket of $6K. I've found that if you keep your AGI < ~$45K, your rates stay low. Higher than $45K, ours...

I came across this net worth calculator in a recent Kiplinger's article on net worth. https://www.thekickassentrepreneur.com/net-worth-percentile-calculator-usa/ The percentiles seemed a bit high for net worth (which this calculator says to include your home value). What do you think of the...

I thought having the HSA was going to be a real income saver that I could use to increase my Roth conversion! Turned out that last year, I had a quadruple bypass, my gallbladder failed, and my wife suffered internal injuries from getting t-boned by a snowbird. Got the $9,300 deduction, but ended...

Since most people did not focus on the healthcare costs of ACA (Marketplace or Obamacare), I will try to. I used this calculator to get early estimates for ACA: https://www.kff.org/interactive/subsidy-calculator/ Generally, if you keep your AGI below $40K, premiums for Bronze can be <...

I noticed that your location is Oahu. Keep in mind with Vanguard that for same day wire transfers out of your account, they need to be submitted by 12:30PM ET. That burned me one time since I live on the West Coast in the Pacific timezone, where the deadline was 9:30AM.

One of the reasons I left Vanguard this year was sending an email question, and having to wait a week for a response. Now that I moved everything over to Fidelity, I have a dedicated local person in my area that I can call and get a response within 24 hours. Even when I was moving my account...

I retired at 50 back in 2017 with 1.7M total (1.2M in retirement & 0.5M in taxable). It's just my wife and I and we spend about $75K/year. We keep about 30% in CDs & T-bills that earn about 5% annually. After looking up what the 3 bucket strategy is, we essentially follow buckets 1 & 3, and not...

My wife and I spend about $600/month for 2 people. We eat out once a week.

I retired at 50, and we initially were at 85/15. Now we're at 70/30 and the DW is much happier. She would prefer 50/50 and I would prefer 80/20 - so we compromised.

This was one of the reasons I left Vanguard for Fidelity. Since signing up with Fidelity in Jan 2024, I've been in contact with Fidelity multiple times, and they always followed up quickly.

I live in Scottsdale and HAD an account with Vanguard. I asked them a couple of years ago if I could come in, and they said they don't meet with investors at their facility.

Sorry - let me clarify some of my numbers. The $3.6M is the overall portfolio, of which $1.3M is a tIRA - so that's the one with the RMD. The rest is spread across Roth and taxable brokerage accounts. By the time I'm 75, I'm estimating that I'll have about $500K left in the tIRA.

I'm assuming 5% return across all my investments.

I use my own Excel spreadsheet that calculates all my accounts year by year and uses the IRS RMD table numbers to calculate the RMD. I mention cost of living simply to say that my yearly withdrawals are increasing. The Schwab calculator makes the basic assumption that the balance compounds year...

I'm starting the RMD at around $25K, and it increases to around $50K within 10 year, and $80K in 20 years (if I'm still alive by then). I'm also assuming a 25% increase in cost of living every 10 years.

Your situation is very similar to my situation. I'm 57, and my wife is 61. Our account balances are also similar, ($3.6M vs your $3.17M and my wife will take SS at 67 while I'll take it at 70. We take out about $75K/year and stay within the 12% tax bracket to keep our Marketplace monthly premium...

My wife is vegetarian, so we buy plant based meats - but not Beyond Meat or Impossible burger since they are typically 33% higher in price. I eat plant based meats to reduce my cholesterol intake since I had a quadruple bypass last year at the age of 57.

Morningstar offers 7 days free for their portfolio X-Ray. Vanguard's Monte Carlo Simulator is a very simple nice one. You don't need prior performance for a Monte Carlo Sim. Your situation is somewhat similar to mine. I retired at 50 with around 1.7M while my DW still works as a writer, so her...

I am back down to my high school weight, but not by choice. Had a quadruple bypass last June and gallbladder was removed last August. Lost 20 lbs and am still skin and bones. The low sodium diet isn't helping to gain back any weight. During physical therapy, other guys were complaining about the...

I had been with Vanguard for 23 years and finally transferred all the funds to Fidelity in the last week. Even when Fidelity did an in-kind transfer from Vanguard to Fidelity, they locked some stock shares from transferring, so I had to call them again so they would remove the lock on the...